In society, people with common goals and interests will often identify or represent themselves with symbols, pictures, or even sounds. Such representations take several forms. For example, a family shield is an “exclusive” representational form, in that it is intended to identify a particular group of people to the exclusion of others. A sports team mascot, may be considered to be an example of a more public or “inclusive” representational form, in that it often represents not only the members of the sports team, but also those persons that may feel an affinity towards the team.
Online representations tend to take the form of the group or individual through what is known as an avatar. An “avatar” typically is a graphical representation of an individual, whether in a three-dimensional model form, a two-dimensional form, or in a textual construct. Avatars traditionally have been used to represent a single person online and have struggled to represent groups of people in a meaningful manner. Furthermore, current forms for representing online groups (or individuals) provide little feedback regarding current activities, behavior, location, or state of the group or individual. While some data visualizations of groups and/or individual activities have been created for public consumption, little of it has been associated with the representation of the group or individual in real time. Thus, a viewer of the avatar may not be able to learn much about the current state of affairs of the group or individual. Moreover, the viewer may not know how to find out such information, or even whom to ask within a group to obtain the group's state of affairs, perspective on a given topic, or the like. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.